That 14 years in the minors, with only a couple of blink-of-an-eye stops in the big leagues, would be enough for the Tottenville native.

That, at 35, Esposito had maxed out his appetite for greasy burgers and bumpy bus rides, and broken fingers and battered shins.

But that simply wouldn't be the guy who caught Jason Marquis in Little League.Overwhelmed at the thought of leaving baseball for even a short span of time, Esposito cried on his last game-day at McKee/S.I. Tech.

Then he went on to become a stud college catcher at UConn and a fifth-round draft choice of the Boston Red Sox.

And he's never looked back since.

Now he is in his first managing gig, with the NY-Penn League Jamestown (NY) Jammers, the short-season A-ball affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Which means the Island native is chief baby-sitter for mostly brand-new minor leaguers.

Kids, who until a few days ago - when they were back in college or high school - were all pampered cleanup hitters and lionized pitching aces.

Sound like fun?

It is if you're a dyed-in-the-wool baseball lifer like Esposito.

'EXTREMELY EXCITED'

"I'm extremely excited," he said while punching a heavy bag in a Jamestown gym a few days ago. "This is what I wanted to do, and I'm actually a little surprised I got the managing opportunity so quickly."

Esposito sees his primary job in terms that have little to do with actually playing the game.

"The idea is to introduce them to the system, and help them learn how to become pros," he explained.

That doesn't mean, necessarily, instructing on a more efficient way to block the plate or how to get better bite on a curveball.

"Right now it's more about learning how to be men, than how to become a better player," Esposito said. "Most of these kids played at big colleges with great facilities. They only played three or four days a week and showed up for practice at four in the afternoon for a couple of hours."

That's not the minor leagues, which is a seven-day-a-week grind, where the evening games are the break from the hours of daily practice.

"They can all play a little or they wouldn't be here," said Esposito. "Now they have to learn how to really work."

And work in different surroundings than they might be used to.

Jamestown, N.Y., is not some college town like Gainesville, Fla., or Austin, Texas, or Ann Arbor, Mich., filled with book stores and coffee shops and bright-eyed coeds.

UPSTATE NEW YORK ON STEROIDS

It is upstate New York on steroids, complete with rusting skeletons of former factories and weather with three seasons; snow, sleet and mosquito-time.

The most famous restaurant in town is A&J's Texas Hots, and some of the big events of the summer are Tuesday $1 beer and hot dog nights at the ballpark.

An old NY-Penn League regular described it to me this way: "There are nine bars on Main Street," he said. "But most of them are shut. I got so bored on an off-day, I visited the main attraction in town; the Lucille Ball Museum."

Rickety Diethrick Park, just outside of town, is where the Jammers play.

It was opened in 1941, and looks it.

In an era of state-of-the-art, taxpayer-fronted Richmond County Bank Ballparks sprouting up across America, the trend blew right by Jamestown without so much as a nod.

But it was good enough for Randy Johnson, who is on the fast-track to the Hall of Fame.

And All-Star MLB outfielder Marquis Grissom also played here, as did free-swinging Matt Stairs.

And Esposito remembers coming through town in 2000, his first summer in the pro game, with the Lowell Spinners.

"For me, this is like retracing my steps," said the guy who played for nine different organizations from coast-to-coast, summer-after-summer, and was able to squeeze a total of just three major league at-bats out of the experience. "When I look at the players, I think, 'I was that guy 14 years ago.'"

OPENING LOSS

The Jammers opened their season Friday night with a 10-9 loss at home to Mahoning Valley, a game which was played in pretty typical A-ball fashion; the starting pitcher didn't get out of the first inning.

The Jammers swing through our town next month to face the S.I. Yankees.In the meantime, Brian Esposito will be carrying on in the tradition of some other Island natives who fashioned a lifetime in baseball even if they only got the smallest of whiffs of the big leagues as players.

In the year before Pearl Harbor it was the old PONY League (forerunner of the NY-Penn) that was the first career stop for West Brighton's George Genovese.

The legendary scout is 92 and still working.

The highlight of his career was one solitary at-bat for the Washington Senators in 1950.

Genovese's Island contemporary, George Bamberger, won 213 minor league games over close to 20 years and went on to manage the New York Mets.But his big league playing career totaled just 14 innings.

There is a permanence to the game, no matter how much time you spend in the majors; a consistent thread that runs from guys like Genovese and Bamberger up to the present.

And there's a well-worn path to success.

Esposito sees himself as a guide of sorts.

"You have to learn how to play nine innings every day and to do it after you've spent the first part of the day getting the rest of their work in," he said.But there's a big payoff to it all for a real baseball person like Esposito.

"It's fun to watch guys grow," the Islander said, before getting back to the heavy bag in front of him. "And hopefully we get around to teaching them some things on the field."